Mrs. Helen Scharff Succumbs
Following Six Weeks Illness
Mrs. Helen Hohenemser Scharff, widow of Gerson Scharff, who died here in
1931, died Tuesday at Methodist
Hospital following an
illness of six weeks. Mrs. Scharff had spent much of her life making others
happy. For more than thirty years, she
visited patients at Home for Incurables, at B’nai B’rith Home and Hospital and
at other local hospitals and in private homes.
She had also helped immigrants before the city had a program organized
for them.
Mrs. Scharff was born 84 years ago on November 25, 1870 in Haigerloch, Hohenzollern, Germany, near Stuttgart.
She came to the United States
at the age of 18 and lived in Decatur, Texas, where she met and married Mr. Scharff
before moving to Memphis
about two years after her marriage.
She was active in Temple Israel,
where she was a charter member of its Sisterhood. She was also active in Cummings School PTA
and was a member of the Central and South Side PTA and of B’nai B’rith Women.
She made her home
at 1174 Fountain Court,
where she had lived for forty-one years.
Surviving are her
four sons, I. G.; Jake H. and Alfred M. Scharff, of Memphis, and Joe R. Scharff, of
Bay St. Louis, Miss.; her two daughters, Mrs.
Charles LaVene, of Memphis
and Mrs. Bernard Ecker of Oak
Park, Ill.; her brother Julius Hohenemser, of Memphis,
and four grandsons.
Services were held
at 2 p. m. Wednesday at Temple
Israel, with Rabbi James
A. Wax officiating. Interment was in Temple Israel
Cemetery.
Hebrew Watchman
September 15, 1955, section 2, page 9